As better and more immersive display devices are created for providing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) environments, it is desirable to be able to capture high quality imagery and video for these systems. In a stereo VR environment, a user sees separate views for each eye; also, the user may turn and move his or her head while viewing. As a result, it is desirable that the user receive high-resolution stereo imagery that is consistent and correct for any viewing position and orientation in the volume within which a user may move his or her head.
The most immersive virtual reality and augmented reality experiences have six degrees of freedom, parallax, and view-dependent lighting. The resulting video data can be quite voluminous, requiring significant resources in terms of storage, delivery bandwidth, and/or processing power. These resources are often constrained, for example, by the processing power of the user's computer, the storage capacity of the user's computer, the bandwidth of the user's connection to a data source, and/or other factors. Such factors significantly limit the quality of the viewer's experience.